Focus on captains Hardik and Rahul as Gujarat Titans take on Lucknow Super Giants
Two new teams making their IPL debut together, playing each other. And two captains who have so much at stake this season.
There is a reason to look forward to the clash between Gujarat Titans and Lucknow Super Giants at Mumbai’s Wankhede Stadium on Monday evening. The two new franchises did well to assemble decent teams at the auction and would be eager to start well.

For Titans’ captain Hardik Pandya, a hugely talented allrounder with a fair bit of success in IPL so far, the new journey as a captain will be challenging. More so as he returns after a long lay-off because of injuries.
KL Rahul, on the other hand, has led Punjab Kings before but even though he was their batting star, the team did not achieve much. Rahul will be keen to translate his personal success into some good fortune for his new team Lucknow.

In the last one year, the careers of KL Rahul and Hardik have taken diametrically opposite turns. While Rahul’s name is among those likely to lead India after Rohit Sharma, Pandya has suffered injuries and lack of form and finds himself out of the Indian team.

Titans will hope this situation motivates Pandya to perform at his best as the team heavily depends on the allrounder. Even though coach Ashish Nehra recently said Pandya is good enough for a T20 team even as a pure batter, there are indications that the Titans skipper will bowl too.
In Rashid Khan, Mohammed Shami and Lockie Ferguson, they have a good bowling line-up but the withdrawal of Jason Roy has made an inexperienced batting line-up look shaky.

Lucknow seem to have no such worries as Rahul and South African Quinton De Kock can be a formidable pair at the top. They also have allrounders Deepak Hooda, Krunal Pandya and West Indian Jason Holder (not available for the first match), and their role with the bat in the middle-order along with Manish Pandey is vital.